This is the 500th episode of Skeptoid. That's a lot of stories; a lot of history and culture and science. We've made many visits to every continent on the globe, and stopped in on every century and every millennium since our species was launched. We've met every kind of person there is, and even gone into space looking for more. Nine years ago there were a hundred of you as my traveling companions on these weekly adventures, and then there were a thousand, and ten thousand, then a hundred thousand. For each of 500 weeks we've found something new to be curious about together.

I realized I'd fooled myself a hundred times, a thousand times. That was when I decided I wanted a really solid general science literacy. Having that exposes a whole new dimension to every story, every claim, every pop-culture fad, every myth. That's how we're able to answer questions like whether cell phones are killing us all, or whether Project Lucifer was ever a viable theory for destroying the planet Jupiter.

Every time I learned about something new, and found an answer I never would have tried before, I felt like the proverbial kid in a candy store. I am often reminded of Marie Curie who famously said: